


what's the meaning of the scar...

by crowkag



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Everyone Is Alive, Father-Son Relationship, Gen, Loss of Limbs, Not Avengers: Endgame (Movie) Compliant, Not Canon Compliant, POV Tony Stark, Peter Parker Needs a Hug, Tony Stark Acting as Peter Parker's Parental Figure, Tony Stark Needs a Hug, but just the aftermath of it, really cannot stress enough that this is an au because endgame who??, this kinda has the vibe of a 5+1 ngl
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-23
Updated: 2019-11-23
Packaged: 2021-02-26 02:00:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 10,219
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21535588
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crowkag/pseuds/crowkag
Summary: ... if we don't learn how to heal.(An AU where Peter snapped instead, lost his arm in the process, but lived because I say so. Emotional distance, hurt, and comfort to follow.)
Relationships: Peter Parker & Tony Stark
Comments: 49
Kudos: 260





	1. texting

When asked how things had been lately, Peter said his ratio was changing.

“What ratio is that, Peter?” Joan’s voice sounded as it did at every session, patient and kind. The qualities were suitable companions for her eyes, which were warm enough to distract from the seriousness of her note-taking.

She’d always been good for Peter, both before and after.

“Good to bad days.”

Tony had his gaze planted on the mahogany coffee table between them, his favorite staring spot during these sessions. Falling into the wood’s smoothness helped make listening easier. His eyes did shift over, though, to watch Peter’s hand.

The office’s reupholstered chairs had metal studs on the faces of their arms, and Peter had been digging his nails under them since sitting down. Burrow under, hook fingers out, curl his fist up, start from the beginning. Rinse, repeat, over and over. He probably didn't even realize he was doing it.

But Tony did, and he knew Joan had as well. He heard it in how she was underlining words three times over, strokes deep enough to warrant worry. Sit through enough company board meetings and you learn to notice those sorts of things.

Joan pushed a stray strand of hair behind her ear. “Which side of the ratio is bigger?”

“Good days. Like… for every bad day, there’s five or six good ones.”

In any given moment, a high chance existed of Peter lying about his well being, but he wasn’t doing it now. Not completely, at least. He _had_ been sounding better, lately. It was just… Tony had the distinct image in his head of a thread bundle falling loose after being held taut for so long, a tangled bunch left behind.

His kid was smiling, though. A small, tired one, but it was there.

That had to be enough for now.

________________

Peter went straight to his room once they got inside his apartment, which would have been worrying if he hadn’t just been chatting happily in the car. Tony closed the door behind him and hung his jacket, then wandered into the kitchen to look for wherever the Parkers kept their pots and pans. The lower cabinets he creaked open first were lacking what he needed and bursting with the opposite of anything expected.

“How the Sultan has fallen,” he murmured at an entire stack of Frank Sinatra records, which were piled up beside bottles of barbecue sauce.

It’d been over a month since learning about the one-and-done double shift that May was picking up this fall, but the information had stayed stubbornly glued to his brain for weeks. He must’ve brought it up one too many times while rambling out loud, because FRIDAY had decided on her lonesome to just clear his calendar and make KEEP PETER COMPANY an official event, timestamp and all.

There wasn’t a true _need_ to hang around the Parker residence until four in the morning. The kid could take care of himself and was better than Tony at not making things explode. But he still didn’t like the idea of Peter being alone for so long.

(“Just sounds boring” was his on-record reasoning when Peter questioned him. It was shorter and simpler to explain than “Paranoia is my default state at the moment, and I’ll probably just end up calling you, anyways.”

Peter hadn’t protested too much, either, not even in a half-hearted sort of way. Actually, he’d protested so little that FRIDAY moved KEEP PETER COMPANY to a top priority event.)

The entire row of bottom cupboards was disappointingly sparse in the “basic kitchen supplies” department, so Tony moved on to the upper ones, pulling open three cabinets in a row. Two were completely empty, and the other could almost be classified as such, save for a travel-sized sewing kit and two shakers of pepper which were clearly labeled salt.

Tony rubbed a spot between his eyebrows, feeling like he wanted to go see his own therapist. “Hey, bud? Think you can help me out in here?”

He heard a door opening, some footsteps, and then Peter was wandering into the kitchen in sweatpants and an offensively yellow hoodie, one earbud in place and another dangling down his chest. There was the muted sound of an acoustic guitar filtering through the speakers. “Sorry, was starting homework. Whatcha need?”

“An understanding of your aunt’s organizational methods, for starters. But I’ll request a pot and pan.”

Peter chuckled. “Right.” He paused his music, set his phone on the table, then opened the cabinet under the sink. It was one Tony had already checked, before seeing it was full of bleach products and moving on.

This kid was going to be the end of him, pretty sure. He leaned back against the counter and crossed his arms. “You know Kleenex isn’t meant for cooking, right?”

“Hey, if I don’t question your kitchen, you don’t get to question mine.”

“Not questioning, just, uh… open to learning new ways of living. Ya know, I’ve had a few strange dishes in my time, but grilled cheese and soup with a side of bleach poisoning? That’s gonna be a first.”

When Peter spared him a single glance, head angled down and mouth dangerously close to upturned, Tony stuck his tongue out and wrinkled his nose. The kid rolled his eyes, turning forward, but he was smiling, for sure.

_Let’s keep that going, then_ _._

“What is there to even question about my kitchen, anyways? I have a dedicated drawer for silverware and everything.”

Peter hooked his arm inside the cabinet and pulled out a pan, knocking over a few hollow bottles of cleaning products along the way. “Um, you mean _Pepper_ has a dedicated drawer for silverware? Besides, a man who has an entire closet of peanut butter doesn’t get to talk.” His hand was back under the sink, rummaging around.

“Bud, you have no idea how many sandwiches Morgan goes through in a day. Makes my carb count go up just thinking about it.”

Peter hummed, withdrew a pot, and straightened up. “Valid, but _Jif?_ Skippy is superior and we all know it.” He had the cookware stacked and balanced when he handed it over. “Pot and pan.”

“Thank you. And I’m gonna pretend I didn’t hear that.”

“Admitting you have bad taste can be hard, I know.”

“Or I can intentionally leave these uncleaned.” He pointed the pot and pan out at Peter, turning so he was facing the kid as he approached the sink. “Your choice.”

Peter had a bemused look on his face. “You are actually the least cool person I know.” He started walking out of the kitchen, scooping his phone and earbuds up as he went. “I’m gonna keep doing homework.”

Tony waved him away and started washing the pot.

________________

Peter was hunched over his desk when Tony came to his door, not paying much mind to the chemistry texts in front of him and talking out loud into his phone. Defying Gravity was playing on his laptop speakers, light enough that Idina’s high notes barely brushed Tony’s eardrums.

“Yeah, true, period. But we barely finished last chapter, so I don’t know what he expects. Send.”

There was the sound of a new message pinging in. Peter read it and sighed.

“No dude, period. Do, caps on, not, caps off, talk to me about this test. I’ve freaked out at least five times this week. Send.”

Tony knocked twice on the doorframe, causing the kid to startle and drop his phone with a clatter. Twisting in his chair with tense shoulders, he slumped back and gripped the front of his sweatshirt when he saw who it was.

“Geez, man. You scared me.”

Tony smirked. “What happened to super hearing, huh?”

Peter casually flipped him off, then started putting away his homework. “Dinner’s done, I guess?”

“Yes, sir. You weren’t having an extremely disjointed conversation with yourself in here, were you?”

Peter made a _pssh_ sound. “No, I’m texting Ned.” He held his phone up, shaking it a bit for emphasis. “Voice to text. A lot easier than typing.”

“I imagine it is. Well, your grilled cheese is waiting. Made with love and all that sappy shit.”

Peter closed his laptop and stood up. “Oh, is that what you call the burning I smelled earlier?”

Tony would have graced that with a real response, only the kid was looking at him now, suddenly thoughtful. Something big and searching was burning behind his eyes, sticking around long enough for Tony to try interpreting.

It was gratitude. And disbelief. Like the kid wasn’t sure if this was a dream he’d soon be waking up from.

Peter blinked and shook his head, snapping out of his trance. “We should eat before it gets cold.”

The moment went away as fast as it came. Tony slid to the side, rolling his arm in an “after you” gesture.

He pulled back the urge to ruffle Peter’s hair as he passed.

________________

“So, I gotta ask. Your kitchen isn’t always like that, is it? ‘Cause the idea of five-year-old Peter Parker getting a fresh dosing of dish soap with his mac and cheese doesn’t exactly make me overjoyed.”

They were collapsed on opposite ends of the couch, Peter drowning in a blanket that hung over and pooled on the carpet. Tony leant back into the angle of his cushion and the arm, half-watching the first movie they’d flipped to when turning the television on. One of the Lord of the Rings films, though Tony didn’t know which one.

Peter maneuvered to lay on his back, legs twisted up to dangle over the back of the couch. “Well, there was a child lock on the sink cabinet.” He snorted at the affronted look Tony shot his way, smiling, then stared up at the ceiling. “But, uh… yeah, it was always kinda messy. Ben had a weird habit of like, shoving things into random drawers. And he’d go into the kitchen first when he came home, so if he wanted to free his hands or whatever, he’d just… toss things in the nearest cabinet.”

Tony breathed a little deeper, feeling privy to some great secret. Peter didn’t talk about Ben too much.

“We keep everything else clean. But it felt weird moving anything around in the kitchen, I guess.”

“Hm. So he was a fan of Frank Sinatra, I take it?” Tony rested his chin in his hand. Peter covered his eyes with his arm.

“Yup. Sinatra and barbecue sauce. I’m gonna guess you found the cabinet.”

“I did. Makes me glad to know you were brought up by a man of class.” At that, Peter laughed, and the accompanying grin stayed plastered on his face for a beat longer than usual.

Gandalf was speaking a lot of really long sentences on the television screen. Car horns honked on the street below the apartment complex. It was dark past the windows, bright colors from flashing signs diluted by bamboo-fiber blinds, but the living room was lit up in cozy hues. Tony followed the whirling red pattern on the rim of a blue lampshade, while Peter breathed across from him. He still had his arm slung over his eyes when he started talking.

“Thank you for coming over, Tony. It means a lot.” His words were quiet and measured, like he’d been mulling over them for a while.

Tony smiled warmly. “No problem. Whenever you need me, yeah?”

Peter nodded jaggedly, like he wanted to keep going but was restraining himself. Tony watched his jaw shift, left and right, as it did when he considered something. Then he was sitting up in one slow, hesitant motion, criss-crossing his legs. He put his eyes on his blanket, picking at a thread, and was silent for a while longer.

“You didn’t have to.”

Tony raised an eyebrow. “Have to what?” He was hoping beyond everything that Peter would look up at him, that he’d stop curling in on himself.

He looked and sounded so small. “You didn’t have to come over.”

Tony sighed out his nose, leaned forward to rest his elbows on his knees. He pressed against the raised ridge of his wedding band to feel its texture, a comforting tic he’d developed. “I rarely do things because I _have_ to, buddy. You know that.”

Peter stared so hard at his lap that he looked like someone hoping to shoot laser beams out his corneas. His lips drew into a tight line as he ran his thumb back and forth along the length of his index finger.

He nodded again, even more disjointed than before. “Thank you. It’s just… well, it’s been hard. And I didn’t want to be alone. So... yeah. Thank you.”

Peter was holding back, and Tony could tell because he was doing it too. His heart beat strong behind his ribcage, and he heard the words filling his chest, flooding into his lungs, clambering up his throat. Everything he’d so desperately wanted to say but couldn’t. All the questions and comments that had spun continuous loops in his brain, again and again, for months now.

_How have you been? Really, how are things? Please talk to me. I love you, kid. I’m so worried about you. I’m here for you, all the time, and you’re never a bother._

Tony still had to remind himself sometimes that Peter was back. Not dust sticking to his fingers, not blown away by the winds of an alien planet. Those were nightmares of the past, bygone days, because he was _here_ again. He sat in Tony’s passenger seat and slept on the couch in his lab and visited the penthouse every other weekend, to the never-ending delight of Morgan.

He was _right. Here._ In the same room, on the same couch, shifted two cushions over.

But he always felt so far away, across some vast chasm.

And Tony knew his words alone weren’t enough to build a bridge.

Peter raised his eyes, only to look at some point on the wall. He didn’t speak. He didn’t look like he wanted to anymore. Whatever openness had been there before was vanished, snatched away.

Tony swallowed his thoughts, poured them in a bottle somewhere in his stomach and fastened the stopper.

He forced his lips to smile. “You’re welcome, kiddo.”

The movie credits rolled past. Peter said something about turning in early, and Tony was left alone on the couch.

The words were already escaping back up to his brain.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> welcome to the beginning of the lengthiest fic i've ever written. it spent a long time just sitting in my google docs, but it's DONE!!!!!! and it's been a long time coming.
> 
> i hope you guys enjoy this one <3 your support means everything, always and forever


	2. cutting food

As the waitress walked away with their menus and orders, Peter lowered his glass of lemonade and sent an expectant look around the table. “ _So…_ you two still haven’t told me what the occasion is.”

The bistro the three of them sat in was warm, cozy, and mostly empty on a Tuesday night. Eating out for dinner wasn’t much of their thing anymore, but it was what normal people did, and Peter could use as much normalcy in his life as possible these days.

So, there was a reason for May and Tony to plan a nice evening out, but Peter didn’t need to know that.

Or, well… it didn’t need to be spoken of aloud, at least.

“Does there have to be an occasion, kiddo?” Tony started unrolling his napkin and setting out the freed silverware. May bumped her nephew’s shoulder.

“What, you too cool to hang out with us?”

Peter hummed, glancing between them both in the mockingly thoughtful way Tony was scared he’d never see again. “You’re cool, May. Not so sure about this guy, though.”

“Ah, starting the snark early tonight, are we?” Tony neatly folded down his napkin and placed it next to his fork, all while giving Peter a _look._ “Ya know, I don’t _have_ to limit your Christmas presents. I can go all out and ignore every wish for an average holiday budget.”

Peter was cracking a smile while his very amused aunt raised her eyebrows. “You know, you aren’t much good at threats.”

“Oh, you’ll think differently come Christmas, May. I’ll put the ownership papers for Disney World under the tree and he’ll start screaming at me.”

Peter openly laughed and thumped Tony’s shin with his foot. “I’ll actually kill you if that happens.”

“See? He threatens me!”

The banter was like a friend visiting after years of being away on business. Light, happy, easy. Peter was _smiling_ , and not just a quick thing. It was goofy, genuine, and real. It was like spending time together before everything happened, and Tony felt the weight leave his chest enough for his lungs to cry in relief.

It was fifteen minutes of bliss.

And then the waitress came back with their food.

She put their plates down, all sincere smiles, asking if there was anything else she could do for them before wishing them a good meal and walking away. Tony made to dig in immediately, famished as he was.

He was letting himself enjoy that first delicious bite of pasta when he looked up to see Peter staring at his own plate, stock-still and ears blooming red. May was frozen, too, face set firmly straight, eyes resisting the melancholic hue that so desperately wished to seep in.

Peter had ordered rosemary chicken, and it smelled amazing. Only problem was that it wasn’t cut.

Tony put his silverware down slowly, meeting May’s gaze for the briefest moment. If she was at all hesitant to speak, she didn’t show it.

“What do you want to do, sweetie? Someone can help, if you want.”

Peter flinched. He was coated in thick embarrassment, but a blink later and those feelings had morphed. The shock was replaced with something dark, closed off, and bubbling under the surface. It was a poster being hung up over a hole in a wall.

“No, it’s fine. Forgot myself a bit. I’ll just... order something else. Soup, I guess. I’ll pay for it.”

May gave her nephew an even, perceptive look. “Alright, hon.” When she shifted focus to her own meal, Tony took it as a cue to do the same.

Peter called for a passing waiter, saying the chicken wasn’t agreeing with him, and that he’d like soup, please. Any kind, it didn’t matter. The waiter, bless his baby-faced, undergraduate heart, gave Peter’s untouched meal a single look, noticed the pinned-up sweater sleeve, and took the plate away with a simple “of course, sir.” No theatrics or over-the-top apologies.

Tony made a mental note to send out some surprise scholarship money.

When the offending dish had been moved out of sight, Peter slid out of the booth with a muttered “I’ll be right back” and made a beeline for the men’s room. Tony would have made to follow, if it weren’t for the subtle shake of May’s head.

The pasta didn’t have much taste anymore, so he pushed it away and looked across the table. “Do you want to say anything to him?”

A sigh. “Yeah, but… not now.” She pushed some of her side salad around with her fork. “Do _you_ want to say anything?”

“Oh, I always want to say something, Mrs Parker. But I’ll defer to your better judgement, as per the usual nowadays.”

May smiled ruefully, lightly massaging a temple. “I wouldn’t say it’s better, but thank you.” Her fork, a seasoned tomato speared through the prongs, rose halfway to her mouth before pausing. The bistro felt more stifling than comforting at this point, and they both knew with unsettled guts that Peter wouldn’t “be right back” from the bathroom. The utensil lowered, and when May leaned forward the slightest bit, Tony saw where Peter got his wide-eyed, subtly distressed facial expression from.

“I’ve been meaning to ask… I’m working so much lately, and you’ve gone to see Joan with him a lot, so... Is he _okay?_ And not ‘okay,’ but… _okay._ With a capital O, Tony. Do you get what I mean?”

Tony immediately envisioned Peter’s last penthouse stay, when the kid’s smiles could be seen but not felt, and the door of his bedroom was never open far enough.

He idly repositioned a cuff. “I know the distinction. A little too well, actually, but… I’m not so sure how to answer you. I won’t even bullshit you on that one.”

May’s face dropped the slightest amount. Tony smoothed out his other cuff, too. “I’m very talented at bullshitting, May. Top in my field. I bullshitted through most of my time at MIT, all the years before then, and plenty of the years after. But this is as unbullshittable a topic as ever there was one.”

The response was decidedly deadpan. “You know, I sometimes wonder how Pepper hasn’t killed you, yet.”

He spread his hands and shrugged. “What, you think I made her CEO all those years ago because she’s an amazing woman who I admire and trust and know deserved the job way more than I ever could? No. I really just wanted to keep her as busy as possible so she’d have less chances to murder me.”

May’s laugh was more a fast breath out her nose. She sat back in her seat, eyes catching on her now discarded meal before losing focus. Tony scratched the curve of his cheek with his thumbnail, knowing that even if this woman found him amusing, he owed her more than his shitty comedic deflections.

That, and he missed Peter. He missed him a lot.

So he steadied himself, forcing down the choked feeling in his throat because he wasn’t too sure what else to do with it. “Truly, May? I don't know what to tell you. We’ve both seen him when he’s bad, and sometimes he’s happy when he comes over. Morgan does that to him more than anything.”

The following pause came naturally, because May was looking at him like his next words might kill her. For the first time tonight, he noticed how much more grey was in her hair.

“If… if you want to know whether he’s _Peter?_ That’s the hard one.”

She stared, breathed deep, and gave a single nod. There came a sheet of silence, and it felt appropriate.

________________

Peter emerged from the bathroom well after his soup arrived, the fresh steam having melted away to leave a cool, murky broth. He hovered over the table, not moving to sit and looking carefully put together, his eyes a little too clear. Somehow, that hurt Tony much more than any obviously post-crying Peter could have.

They left mere minutes later, the soup untouched but paid for out of Peter’s insisting pocket. When the host wished them a good night as they left, Peter was the only one to respond, with a “thanks, you too!” so perfected and filtered that it left an ache in Tony’s chest well into the night.


	3. hugs

Lakehouse visits were soothing nine times out of ten. This just happened to be that one other time, Tony supposed.

Their arrival night was slow and easy, everyone giving in to their drooping eyelids, not bothering to unpack the car until the sun came up. After that, it was lounging on the loveseats with feet kicked up on the coffee table, warm silence and sunlight filling the spaces around them. Life was demanding and hectic, bursting with bright headlines on tabloids and the incessant chatter of greedy board members, but at least Tony’s odd little family could look forward to these moments.

It was a pained shriek in the night that toppled the calm. Hearing Morgan screaming at four in the morning sent Tony back into that new parent panic where an alarm clock wasn’t necessary anymore, because maybe newborns couldn’t tell time, but _damn_ if they weren’t good at getting hungry every two hours.

Except this cry wasn’t for a midnight bottle, and a sprint to Morgan’s bedroom confirmed it wasn’t coming from down the hall. Morgan was old enough to _walk_ now, and they were by a _lake_ , and she still believed every car drove itself except the ones belonging to her family, which didn’t have much to do with anything except reminding Tony of how young she was, and what if she was drowning? What if she was being taken? _Why was this world so dangerous for the people who deserved danger the least?_

He was clambering down the stairs in a frenzy. Pepper followed in her robe, trying valiantly to shove her panic far enough down her throat so someone could play the rational parent.

“She knows not to go out by herself, Tony. Peter wasn’t in his room, either, so they’re together. She’s fine.”

 _She’s fine_ , he repeated back to himself in his mind like a mantra. If he was having a hard time breathing, talking might be enough to kill. The screaming had stopped, but that made more thoughts spark up faster than could be processed.

_What if Peter’s hurt? What if they were both hurting but only Morgan could cry? What if they’re gone? What if they’re de-_

Tony yanked open the front door, experiencing a fresh surge of terror when he realized it was _unlocked_ , and burst through onto the porch. When the screen door smacked the side paneling with a shudder, a familiar pair of startled yelps shot out into the night. Tony turned with wide eyes, and didn’t know at that moment whether to pass out, cry, or march right back inside.

Peter was sitting on the outdoors couch, visibly shaken and face pale, holding an upset Morgan against his chest. She had drying tear tracks on her cheeks and an angry, bleeding cut on her knee. Both of them wore wet pajamas that stuck to their skin, and their hair was dripping earthy lake water onto the couch cushions.

Tony’s chest was tight, filled with white noise so loud it was swirling into his head. They were _alive_ , the both of them, and it was a relief in such a way that the initial dread was boiling into anger. He heard Pepper step out beside him with a quiet “oh, thank goodness,” pushing past to gather Morgan in her arms. The moment his lap was empty, Peter stood and backed up to the railing, gripping the grain hard enough to blanch his knuckles.

Pepper was mad - Tony could tell by the way her eyebrows lowered the slightest amount - but she hid it behind forced calm. “What were you two doing? You know you shouldn’t be out here so late.” Peter opened his mouth, though nothing came out for a moment. His eyes didn’t know where to look, dashing between the porch overhang, Pepper and Tony’s faces, and his bare feet leaving wet spots on the wood.

“I… I wanted to go swimming. And I asked Morgan if she wanted to come. I’m sorry.”

Morgan had hidden her face against her mother’s shoulder, trying to conceal her sniffling, but she raised up just enough to look at Peter. She shook her head and wiped her eyes on the swell of her fist. “Nuh-uh. I wanted to swim. Peter said no but I still wanted to.”

Tony barked out a laugh, short and sharp. He couldn’t help it. But it wasn’t nice, nor an attempt to ease tension. Peter’s eyes found Tony’s face and wouldn’t leave.

He spoke evenly, any leftover anxiety settling into a scarily tranquil base, though he felt the bite behind his words. “Swimming? It’s _four_ in the _morning_. You two almost gave me a heart attack.”

Peter’s face got impossibly whiter, while Morgan shied back into Pepper’s neck. Tony knew he should feel bad, knew they were all stretched thin enough and he was making things worse. He was just… well, he was a little pissed.

“Tony, save the talk for later.” Pepper had her CEO voice primed, piercing gaze focused and unmoving. “Peter, go inside before you catch a cold. I’ll clean Morgan up.”

The kid was too quiet. Tony saw him flick his gaze to Morgan’s scraped knee, and then smooth up to Pepper’s no-nonsense expression.

“Okay.” He didn’t look at Tony as he went inside.

Pepper breathed out her nose, a hand tangled in Morgan’s hair, which was curling up a bit as it dried. She stepped forward, stopped, and shifted their daughter’s weight to move her hand on Tony’s shoulder, squeezing. “Go find something to do. I’ll talk to him alone.”

Then she was sweeping past and through the screen door, trying her best to hush Morgan, who had started crying again.

________________

“Something to do” became flopping onto his bed after being shooed away from the first-aid supplies for the seventh time.

He heard the shower go off down the hall just as Pepper entered their room, the mattress sloping to meet her as she sat by Tony’s head. Her fingers brushed some of his hair back. “I put Morgan to sleep again. She’ll be bouncing on the walls tonight, so probably not my best idea. But she’s okay.”

Tony closed his eyes. “Her knee won’t get infected or anything?”

“No, it won’t get infected.”

“That’s good.”

“Sure is.” She ran her nails lightly on his scalp, back and forth and lazy with tiredness, then kissed his brow before standing. “I think our town visit can wait until tomorrow. We could use another pajama day.”

Tony gave a sluggish thumbs up in response, then he was left to listen to the morning as Pepper went into the hall. The first sunbeams were coming through the window, warming his face and the surrounding sheets. There was the usual birdsong, carried along by the breeze coming off the lake. Pepper’s many wind chimes were tinkling, almost talking to each other.

He opened his eyes, adjusting to the sudden brightness. The ceiling was broad and empty, and if he focused in on the point directly above his head, it seemed to stretch on infinitely. There was a squeak down the hall as the shower water was shut off. Tony let the sudden loss of that background hum wash over him as he sat up, sliding off the bed against the wishes of his joints.

He went to Morgan’s room, coming in to draw the curtains all the way.

She was a lump under her covers, breaths snuffling against her pillow. Tony tucked a strand of hair behind her ear, noticing how blotched her cheeks were from crying.

“A nighttime swim, huh?” The question was said under the breath, meant for his ears only. It held no purpose beyond a simple placation for the sake of his mind.

Nonsense muttering was nonsense muttering to plenty of people. For Tony, it was like pricking a hole in a pump. Let enough pressure out, and it doesn’t get the chance to explode your insides. Maybe it didn’t solve anything, but sometimes it kept his world from tilting any farther.

And his world liked to tilt a lot.

Morgan stayed sleeping, a little fist wrapped up in her blanket. Tony knew that when she woke, the outside would be a happy place for her again. That rock she’d cut her knee on wouldn’t matter anymore, and the porch would remain the supreme spot for lining up pinecones.

Tony loved that innocent childhood glow in her eyes. He’d keep it there forever, if he could. But the universe wasn’t so kind a place, and nobody ended up so lucky.

Which was why he headed to Peter’s room next.

He knew what he’d been told, but the panic-laden anger had fizzed away a good hour ago, somewhere between the kitchen table and the fifth step on the staircase. If there was any fury left, it was at himself, emanating from the memory of Peter’s wide eyes and colorless face.

More than anything, though, he was drained.

He came up to Peter’s door, but the sound of Pepper’s voice had him stopping outside, right up against the wall.

“... you’re both okay, Peter. That’s what I care about.”

“I know, but… I’m still sorry.” Peter’s voice was shaky, held together with flimsy strips of fake stability. It hurt Tony’s chest to hear it.

“It’s okay, honey.” There was a sniffle. A wavering Peter always pushed Pepper over the edge. “Morgan was trying to tell me what happened.” She laughed wetly. “On any given day I think I need a code book to understand her. Imagine trying to make sense of her when she’s crying.”

Peter let out a chuckle, then lapsed into heavy silence.

Tony felt rooted to the floor, stuck in a haze. He knew there was a high chance Peter could hear him out in the hallway, but he hovered nonetheless. It felt more invasive than it should, as if the threshold to the bedroom had been creeping steadily closer as he listened in.

He didn’t belong in this conversation, but it would be so easy to ignore that thought and move forward, selfishly entering the space Peter and Pepper had created.

Louder than that idea, though, was a voice saying it’d be less of an entrance and more of a barge.

So he chose to just stay where he was, hurting with the effort of it and feeling damned because he couldn’t yank himself away.

Peter’s small voice cut through the fog of his thoughts.

“This sounds so dumb, but I was getting really upset with myself.”

Pepper didn’t speak. Tony could picture the patience in her eyes, all quiet understanding and no hurry.

“It’s… well, she was crying because she, you know. She fell and scraped her knee. And I wanted to sit with her and stop her crying before we went inside, so that’s why we were on the porch. And I was… I was holding her, and she was still crying but not as much, and… and… I don’t know. It didn’t seem like enough.”

“What didn’t?”

Pepper’s voice was soft. Peter’s reply was even more so.

“The hug I was giving her. ‘S kinda hard, and all, hugging with one arm.”

And those words, for all their heaviness, weren’t sad. They were resigned and defeated, and Tony felt those squishy chairs in Joan’s office coming up to meet him. There was Peter, eyes getting emptier by the day, clutching May’s hand like it was the only thing keeping him on this planet. No smiles, little talking, barely any eating. Months on end of an indescribable _lack_.

Tony’s world went sideways, and he got the message. The walk back to his room was spent leaning on the wall for support.


	4. itches

Tony never much cared for cacti.

He remembered Howard having more than a few, which seemed as appropriate a relationship as humans and the bacteria in their guts. Howard kept his plants alive, and the plants reminded Tony not to get too close to something that was determined to keep you away. Which really just boiled down to _Howard never had to worry about being annoyed_.

It was directly observable symbiosis. He should have majored in biology.

Tony didn’t know quite why he was remembering his father’s preference for cacti, but it probably had something to do with the highway they were on, which was long, empty, and stretching through the Sonoran Desert.

“Ah, deserts have cacti.” Tony spoke aloud like those people on Wheel of Fortune who, after twenty lucky spins, finally realized what the answer was.

Peter glanced at him from the passenger seat, eyebrow quirked. Tony waved his hand through the air.

“Cactuses, Pete. Don’t touch them, I hear they hurt.”

Peter did that thing smarmy teens liked to do where they nodded judgmentally and didn’t bother to verbally respond. Tony huffed.

“Geez, tough crowd.”

They’d been on the road for two weeks, now. There wasn’t much purpose to their impromptu road trip. It was just the result of one too many bad weekdays, a lot of ice cream flavors thrown into a bowl at three in the morning, and a half-asleep Peter answering “why not?” when Tony suggested ditching school to go see a movie.

The movie was okay, but California sounded nicer. It was Peter’s idea, actually.

Flash forward a bit, cutting out staying in crappy hotels and taking touristy photos that Peter tried way too hard to perfect, and there they were, slowly making their way eastward under the watchful eyes of lizards and wispy clouds.

It had been a nice trip, except now Peter was jostling his leg impossibly fast, and Tony was only now noticing because his thoughts for the past four or five miles had been consumed by cacti.

“You alright, bud? I can pull over if nature’s calling.” His kid’s response was so much nothing that Tony wondered if he heard him.

“Kiddo?”

Peter sighed, already sounding a few steps past the verge of annoyance. “Yeah?”

“You okay?”

“Nope.”

Tony waited for more, but that was all Peter provided. Every bit of energy the kid gave off screamed “please leave me alone,” but Tony never liked taking the things he was handed.

“You wanna tell me what’s wrong?”

“Not really.”

“Why not?”

“Because.”

“Because why?”

“Please stop talking.”

“And leave you to suffer in silence? Perish the thought.”

Peter’s leg picked up more speed. It was starting to vibrate the car at this point.

He was fidgeting, pressing his back rigid against his seat. Each breath was measured. “My… my arm itches, Tony.”

It sounded like something that could have an easy fix, but Peter sounded so hurt and confused over it that Tony got the feeling he was out of his depth.

Which he was, of course.

He took a hand off the steering wheel, curling and uncurling his fingers in the air next to him.

“I do have a free hand, bud.”

Peter’s leg was still going, erratic and rhythmless. He said his next words like he was forcing them to fit through a small hole. “No, I mean…” He ran his hand through his hair and sighed, sounding simultaneously like he wanted to fall asleep and burst into tears. “My _left_ arm itches.”

Tony felt like he’d been jolted. “Oh.”

“Yeah, _oh_.”

“Well… is there anything you can do about it?”

“Maybe, but not right now.”

Tony, despite his better judgement, shot ahead at attempting to lighten things. “What, do you need to sit cross-legged on a mountain for twelve years and do nothing but meditate?”

“Yeah, sure. And you know what I heard _really_ helps with meditation?”

He’d walked into this one. “Well… let me guess. Is it me being quiet?”

“Wow, you’re _learning_!”

Then Peter rolled his window down to let the air whip in. He turned his head to stare right out into the desert, yanking the hood of his jacket up so his face was completely obscured. Tony increased his pressure on the gas pedal by the slightest amount.

_Point taken, kiddo… So, what was I thinking about again?_

_Ah, yes._

_Cacti._


	5. homework

Lab days were safe days. Not always happy ones - the floor still had the dried, stubborn remains of tear puddles to prove it - but safe ones.

Peter had once said it was because of all the positive times he’d had there, that the “leftover vibes were in the walls.”

Tony’s response of, “I think those are just the grease stains from all the pizzas we ate,” earned him a pen being thrown at his head.

Nevertheless, today’s lab day was lining itself up to be both safe _and_ happy. Tony was poring over an upgrade for the design of a new wind turbine he was sponsoring, providing alteration suggestions before sending it off. Peter sat behind him at his usual table, working on calculus and filling the space with chatter on what happened in English that morning.

“Taylor was so upset. She started crying.”

Tony spoke around the thumbnail he was biting down on, swiping the hologram this way and that. “Well, I’m not gonna blame her for that.”

Peter was shoving chips into his mouth while trying to talk. “Oh, me neither! But I felt so embarrassed for her, ya know? Like, she’d worked really hard on that essay. Literally, it was all she talked about for a while. There’s no way she plagiarized, like I really can’t imagine that. I don’t know how anyone could.”

“Sounds like your English teacher is just a dickhead, Peter.”

“That’s a little harsh.”

Tony shrugged, zooming in on the side of a turbine blade. “So is accusing a student in front of all her classmates that she stole someone else’s work.”

He heard Peter tapping some numbers into his calculator, mumbling an equation under his breath before giving a distracted, “Yeah, I guess.”

“And isn’t this the same lady who said your class would never get into any ‘real schools’ if you didn’t learn how to write properly?” Tony curved the angle of the blade’s edge with a slight drag of his finger. “Because that’s big dickhead energy. In the words of you, probably.”

Peter laughed briefly at the term usage. “Whatever you say.” Then he fell into more muttering, a confused lilt to his voice as he read numbers back to himself.

Tony started losing focus on the blueprints before him, keying in on Peter’s rambling. A few more calculator keys were pressed, an annoyed huff was expelled, and then Peter was asking for help. Tony spun on his heel and came over, standing beside the kid’s chair.

“So we’re reviewing limits again, and I’ve been doing okay so far but this one problem is killing me…”

They lapsed into the familiarity of Tony pointing out any mistakes and asking questions, reassuring Peter that he was almost there. Just an adjustment or two he had to make before he was good. And, like always, Peter was soon making a noise of realization as he hunched over his paper, switching into single focus.

Tony stepped away and hovered beside him, fondness flooding his chest as he watched with his hands in his pockets.

In one moment, he noticed Peter’s calculator serving as a makeshift paperweight, anchoring the top edge of his homework to the table. The next few moments to follow happened quick, like a scene in a movie that needed a few rewinds before it could sink in.

Peter was writing fast, scribbling down variables and numbers. He had his tongue between his teeth as he worked, and stared hard at what Tony happily realized was the correct equation.

The kid shot his hand over to type into his calculator. His bunched-up sweatshirt sleeve caught the bottom edge of the paper, curving it off the table to slide under the rest of the sheet. Peter’s wrist, moving too fast, hit the edge of his calculator and bumped it over, the rubber feet on its back squeaking against the hard surface of the table. His arm withdrew in surprise, coming down to crumple his homework under itself, leaving a long fold.

Tony felt the immediate change of atmosphere in the room. He knew Peter’s feelings on what counted as truly upsetting had altered since everything happened. It only took one glance at the kid to see where his thoughts were going.

Peter sat completely still, staring at his hand, and the pencil positioned mid-flip between his fingers. He sat back stiffly with measured breaths, dropping his pencil to grab the folded paper and shake it out flat in the air. When he put it back down, it was with enough force to create an audible slap against the table. The sound bounced around the lab before hanging in the air above their heads, taunting and stormy.

Tony stood in place, hands lifted out of his pockets as if to reach out, though he kept them down at his sides. Peter’s shoulders were tense, his face screwed up like he was trying not to spit out a bad bite of food.

The hum of the AC unit became apparent, as well as the ambient beeps of various machines. Tony heard the tick of the clock by the door, counting the seconds.

1… 2… 3… 4…

The rigidness in Peter’s muscles left all at once. He lowered his hand to his lap, and his forehead to the table.

Tony’s heart hurt. “You need anything, buddy?”

Peter gave a restricted shake of his head. “I’m okay.” Then his shoulders hiked up the smallest amount. “Sorry.”

Now it was Tony’s turn to shake his head, though Peter couldn’t see it. “It’s okay.” He saw the kid’s shoulders fall back into rest again and let a minute or two glide by, remaining close while Peter focused on breathing.

He lowered his voice for his next words, feeling sad and doting. “Ya know, I think I forgot lab rule number 16, kiddo.”

Peter stayed silent, then sighed when he realized Tony wanted an actual response. He recited in a scratchy, mockingly flat voice, “Peter Parker shall not make any unnecessary apologies in Tony Stark’s lab.”

Tony leaned forward. “There was a because after that, right? C’mon, I could really use the reminder. My brain ain’t too _there_ anymore. Old age and all.”

Peter sighed again. “Peter Parker shall not make any unnecessary apologies in Tony Stark’s lab be _cause_ he’s a super incredibly radical person who needs to realize how super incredibly radical he is, and that can be hard if he thinks he needs to apologize for everything.”

A smile had grown in his voice as he was speaking. Tony leaned forward even further, expectant and balancing on the balls of his feet.

“And the sarcastic footnote?”

Peter chuckled quietly against the table, shaking a bit with the sound. “Pepper says that Tony is only allowed to speak about two thousand words a day because she can’t stand much more than that, and Tony really needs to read her at least ten of Shakespeare’s love sonnets each night, mostly because she prefers Sir Philip Sidney. So Peter needs to hold back because telling him it’s okay every time he apologizes uses up at least five hundred of his words.”

Tony leant his weight back to the ground. “Ah, yes. _That’s_ what it was. It was right on the tip of my tongue, too.”

Peter rolled his head to the side, cheek pressed under him. He looked up at Tony, eyes finding their spark again. “Is that one before or after the ‘Tony can’t use his age for leverage in anything’ rule?”

Tony came to sit on the edge of the table, tilting his head with feigned thoughtfulness. “Definitely before. Can’t think why you’d be asking, though.”

Peter laughed again. “Right.”

They sat in comfortable, still silence. Peter closed his eyes and Tony looked down at him with a smile, letting himself settle into the moment.

He’d known for a while that on his list of things he couldn’t easily handle, “thinking about the long term” was written in size 48 bold font and underlined in red. It was a surefire way to get his mind wandering, out past his little slice of Earth and into the cosmos beyond. If he went too far, he’d see the hulking shadows of unknown threats in the eclipses of stars.

Those were also on his list.

But the present was usually okay. Not easy, but manageable. At least any distress placed right in front of him had a chance of being eased. Any other type tended to elevate Tony’s blood pressure.

After a while, Peter lifted his head up, redness seeping back into his cheek. He stretched out in his seat and arched his neck to stare at the ceiling.

“Food?”

Tony got to his feet. “Food.”


	6. talking to you

At half-past four, Tony looked over the rim of his third cup of coffee to see a visibly upset Peter rushing through the kitchen. By the time a _hey, bud_ could begin to form in his throat, the kid was swerving the corner into the hall.

More quick footsteps… the sound of a bedroom door opening before a half-hearted slam… and then nothing.

Tony breathed deep and pushed his sleeve up to stare at his watch. When two minutes had clicked by, he downed another gulp of espresso and went to Peter’s room. The penthouse was still and quiet around him, all light beyond the kitchen coming from windows.

He knocked softly before opening the door.

Peter had thrown his backpack down and not even bothered to draw the blinds before collapsing into bed. No overload, then. But he was curled up loosely on his side, staring at the wall. He still wore his sneakers and jacket, too.

Tony resisted the urge to step any further into the room. “Bad day at school?” _Drop a name and I’ll send an angry Morgan after them_ is what he would have added on, if he weren’t also being careful not to make any jokes.

“Leave me alone, Tony.” There were traces of heat, barely recognizable if you didn’t know what to look for. Peter just sounded more worn-out than anything else.

Tony patted the wall absentmindedly. “I’ll be on the couch.” Then he closed the door and walked away.

________________

The sun had long since departed when Peter eventually emerged from his bedroom. Tony watched him shuffle into the living room, bundled up in a hoodie and pajama pants. His hair was mussed up into its natural curls, so he’d taken a shower at some point. That was relieving, at least.

When he saw Tony, he wandered over with a tired smile on his face. “You’re still out here.”

Tony smiled back. “Yep. Unlike you, I don’t have a bedtime.” He patted the couch and Peter took the invitation, collapsing a cushion away.

There was a wry expression on his face. “Yeah, but you probably need one.”

“Oh, I _definitely_ need one. No argument there.”

Peter closed his eyes and hummed amusedly in response. The penthouse was empty save for the two of them. Pepper would come home a few hours from now, force herself to read another chapter of her book before falling asleep. And tomorrow, Tony would pick up Morgan from a sleepover. She’d charge out of the elevator, wrap herself around Peter’s legs, and forget her parents existed for the rest of the weekend.

But that was for later.

Right now, it was just them. Peter and Tony up against the world. (Nothing beyond that. Their doctors forbade it.)

Peter tilted his chin back, opening his eyes to stare at the ceiling. “School was okay. It was just… getting here. Riding the bus was the big thing.”

Tony made a sympathetic noise. “Were people staring?”

“They’re always staring. I’m used to it, but… I don’t know. Today it was just… it was different. And I don’t know why.”

“You don’t have to know. Trust me, sometimes it’s easier just not thinking about it.”

Peter hummed again, shifting his jaw. Tony had a feeling his shitty bus ride was the last thing the kid cared about right now, and he was right. Peter suddenly straightened up, looking like a ball of restrained, nervous energy. But something else was there, too.

Peter’s eyes stared down at his lap, at the rug, at the coffee table. But they eventually raised to meet Tony in the middle.

“I’ve… I wanted to show you something.”

From the front pocket of his hoodie, he withdrew a little journal and held it out. Tony blinked at it, stupidly, then accepted it with some reverence, noticing the slight tremor in Peter’s hand. It was weighty for such a small book, but Tony thought that had nothing to do with its size. His heart thumped too hard, too fast, and he didn’t open the journal right away. He waited, asking silently for permission. _Are you sure?_

The nod Peter gave him was small but determined. He sucked in a breath as Tony turned the cover.

The first dozen pages or so were marked with dates, the earliest going back more than a few months. They were filled with neat handwriting, lined up into long paragraphs. Formal talks about school, and friends, and how physical therapy was going.

But the farther in Tony got, the choppier the sentences became. Some were neat like before, an idle scribble of thoughts. Most were written with a clear shake in the arm. Tony skimmed all of these as he flipped through, catching things like “Today was hard” and “May helped me last night.”

Peter was beginning to ramble beside him, the anxiety he’d pushed down surging past his barriers.

“Joan said I should write. Just, like. About _anything_. She tried getting me to do stuff like this, uh… well, _before_. And I didn’t do it? I didn’t have time, but I also didn’t want to, ya know? But she was really pushing it, and there was a night a while ago where I couldn’t sleep because my arm was hurting. Not a lot, but it was keeping me awake. So, I… I started writing.”

Tony listened as he flipped, chest squeezing. There was lots of cursing later on, deep and angry lines where the indent of the pen went through to the next page. Three sheets in a row were just dark clouds of ink, frustrated scratches all spreading into the corners. Then there was another longer, neater paragraph, then some drawings, then another dark ink cloud.

“A lot was written in school. And I tried to keep track of it at first but kinda gave up. Time got blurry a lot, so… I didn’t care after a while?”

The journal kept going, kept getting messier, kept making Tony’s heart ache. He flipped past more hurt and early morning breakdowns, stopping toward the middle on a dog-eared page. It was titled SHIT THAT’S HARD!!!!!, underlined four times.

Underneath was a list, unnumbered yet numerous - both in length and medium. Tony saw graphite, lots of different pen colors, a highlighter, a sharpie, some in colored pencil. The handwriting wobbled and tilted, and Tony could follow the line of emotion through a dotless lowercase I, or the downstroke of an N sweeping into the space below it.

The words crammed into margins, got bunched up under one another, overlapped in some spots. Tony’s eyes caught on a few.

_brushing my teeth_

_washing my hair_

_cutting food_

_SCRATCHING MY ARMS_

_tying my shoes_

_keeping my paper from moving when i’m writing notes_

_texting_

_today ned brought in cards against humanity for the decathlon team and i had to keep putting my cards down to play and it was annoying and it slowed the game down._

_hugging people_

_buttoning a shirt_

_holding my lunch tray_

_building stuff_

_cleaning the apartment_

Each piece made Tony’s chest fold in further, until he was scared he’d collapse in on himself. Peter’s words got frantic next to him, so many thoughts toppling over each other.

“I just… it’s kinda therapeutic? Like when I’m mad or frustrated or whatever I can scream into my journal instead of screaming at other people.”

Tony held the journal tight, but he couldn’t read anymore.

“And I want to scream a _lot_ , Tony. I feel so bad about it. Laundry was piling up last week and my only clean shirts were button-ups, and May had to help me with the buttons because I was starting to rush, and I wanted to _scream_ at her. I know I shouldn’t, I feel awful thinking about it, but I don’t know what to do sometimes.”

His voice got louder, sliding up the spectrum. “And I want to scream at Ned, and MJ, and Joan, and… and _everyone_. All the people who try to help me. I wanted to scream at Pepper and Rhodey… and Morgan, and…” His voice caught, shame flooding his face as tears welled up in his eyes. The first to fall off his lashes were invitations for the rest. “I wanted to scream at _Morgan_. And you, too.”

Tony closed the book, placing it on the coffee table. He turned to fully face Peter, whose voice was hiccuping and ragged. He ran his hand under his eyes, back and forth. For each tear he wiped away, more came down to replace it.

“I know you all want to help. I just… just fucking _hate_ that you have to. I fucking _hate_ being like this! And I HATE that I hate it, because I know I’ve been a... a pain in the ass lately. I know I’m being difficult all the time. I know I’m not me, and I know I’m hurting everyone when I get like this. It’s just… it’s all so _hard_.”

Peter was sobbing, heaving and choking with the force of it. His hand gripped the back of the couch, hard enough to crack the frame. The tears caught inside his mouth and dripped off his chin and slid down his nose. They landed on the fabric of his clothing and seeped in.

More than anything, Tony wanted to reach out. To hold, to hug, to comfort. He itched with the pull of it.

But not yet.

( _“This is gonna be hard, Tony. Just be patient.” May’s face was so sad, so lost, outlined against the white of the hospital walls and the blue fluorescents above them. In the room behind her, Peter lay in an anesthetic-induced sleep. The gazes of a trillion saved souls from a trillion saved universes had draped themselves across his recently-casted shoulders, and Tony felt dizzy at the thought of it._

 _May’s voice came out desperate. “We need to be there for him. But some stuff… You let him come to you, first. Please.”_ )

Peter was still crying, still gasping.

His hand came up from the couch, went to make another attempt at wiping his cheeks.

Then - slowly, carefully - it settled on the cushion between them, palm up.

He sounded so scared, so young, voice little more than a broken whisper.

“I’m sorry, Tony. I promise I don’t regret it. I promise.”

His fingers curled open the smallest amount, and that was all Tony needed. He put his hand in Peter’s and gripped, hard as he could. His eyes burned.

“Oh, buddy. I know you don’t.” When he scooted over and Peter fell against his chest, something slotted into place. “You’re okay, Peter. It’s okay to be upset.”

Peter sniffled, shaking. “ _How_? People… people died. And they were hurting. And now it’s okay again, but I can’t… I can’t just suck it up. I feel so bad about that, Tony, I-”

Tony shushed him, ran a comforting hand up and down his back. He spoke into his kid’s curls, hoping to breathe his promises past all the pain.

“Peter, it is _okay_. We would never expect you to be happy about all this. I mean, yes, we want you to feel better. But… God, kid. I’m sorry if you thought that’s what we wanted.”

Peter pressed his nose into Tony’s shirt. “No, it’s… it’s what I want. I shouldn’t be this upset. It’s just an arm.”

Tony pulled back and cupped Peter’s face in his hands, willing and waiting for those big eyes to look back at him. He rubbed soothing lines over Peter’s cheekbones. “No, it’s that and more. It always is.”

Peter looked lost. Tony breathed a laugh, smiling and choked up. He loved this wonderful, earnest kid so damn much, and felt so sad for him because he really didn’t _know_.

“You saved so _much_ , buddy. I know you don’t think it’s a big deal, and I know you’d do it again. You’ve got the biggest heart out of all of us, Peter.”

Peter let himself lean into Tony’s touch, eyes round. New tears were falling, calmer than before. Tony brushed them away with the pads of his thumbs.

“But you’re carrying so much of it, kiddo. You got all this weight inside you and you’re not letting it out.”

He shifted one hand higher to run his fingers through Peter’s hair. “You saved an endless _universe_ of lives, Peter. Not just one universe, either, and nobody I know has _anything_ to one up you on that. So I think you’ve earned a retirement from the stoicism, huh?”

Peter stared for a long while, something shifting in his face. The moonlight coming past the windows lit up his eyes as he took deep breaths. He looked like he’d been waiting for words like those. Like he’d been too ashamed to say them to himself, to give himself the permission he needed.

His hand came up to cover the one Tony still had on his cheek, and he nodded, sniffling.

“Okay. Maybe.”

 _There he was_.

Tony poked him in the side. “Maybe?”

Peter laughed wetly, batting his hand away and nodding again. “Yeah. Yes.”

He was a mess, cheeks tearstained and voice stuffed up. He’d definitely need something to stave off the post-crying migraines he got, but honestly? He looked more at peace than anyone had seen in a long, long time.

Tony had that peace settle in his chest, too, as he pulled Peter in for another hug. He pressed a kiss to his kid’s hairline and squeezed him tight.

“Good. Thank you, Peter.”

And for the first time in years, Tony felt like he could rest.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> annnnd welcome to the end of the lengthiest fic i've ever written.
> 
> thanks so much for reading, and a huge shoutout to everyone who continued to read, kudos, and comment on my work while ive been trying to get my shit together for the past few months. the email notifs i get every day always make me so happy
> 
> love yall 3000 <33


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